


Which witch?

by Adara_Rose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Dark Magic, F/M, Fluff, Rewrite, Romance, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-01-07 04:42:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12225990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adara_Rose/pseuds/Adara_Rose
Summary: Draco the Despicable, dreaded Wizard of the South, has decided to take a wife!His true love must be a witch of the darkest powers - but who shall it be? To find the most fiendish one, he holds a spell-casting competition.The magic of gentle Luna, the white witch, goes hopelessly wrong. She produces flowers and rainbows instead of skulls and snakes. Bats roost in her golden hair instead of becoming blood-sucking vampires.Poor Luna desperately wants to be a wicked enchantress, but how is she going to manage that in the short amount of time she has to catch the eye and heart of the Wizard of her dreams?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of my all time favourite book, "Which Witch?" by Eva Ibbotson. All similarities are completely intentional.

Lord and Lady Malfoy were very worried about their baby up until the day he was born. But within the hour of the little boy came howling into the world they were greatly relieved. This was for several reasons. Firstly, he was born with a full set of pearly white teeth, and bit so deep into his father’s index finger he left a permanent scar when the man tickled him. Secondly, he had intensely piercing blue-grey eyes that seemed to see everything and not like one bit of it. Thirdly, he didn’t cry. He howled like a banshee when they took him from his mother and swathed him in a soft white cloth, but not a tear fell from those perfect eyes. But most importantly; when they came home from the hospital and had the house elves light a cozy fire in the second-best parlour, the smoke in the chimney started blowing against the wind.

“A wizard!” Mr Malfoy, who was from a very prominent magical family, cried with relief. The new mother smiled indulgently at her husband as she rocked her precious baby.

“A dark wizard” she cooed, so proud she felt like she was going to burst.

That they named him Draco, after a very famous and very evil wizard of old, came as no surprise to anyone.

 

* * *

 

 

Draco grew up spoiled, as all rich kids tend to do, and by the time he was eleven he was so horrible everyone was positively terrified of his temper. In one of his rages, he had brought the roof down over all their heads and set his mother’s favorite curtains on fire before he’d even gotten so far as to stomp his foot. Mrs Malfoy was a bit put out about the curtains, but the power her boy showed made her willing to forgive everything.

 

Therefore, Mr and Mrs Malfoy encouraged little Draco to practice his powers as much as possible, even though it became rather expensive to continuously having to repair various parts of the manor. But as Mr Malfoy said, “the only ones getting hurt are the house elves, and they are easily healed.”

 

And so it was that Draco grew beautiful and cruel, with a sneer that could terrify even the bravest (and did so on a twice-weekly basis). His eyes had paled to stormy grey, and his hair was the shade of wheat just barely ripe. He was stunning, and he knew it.

 

Life was rather wonderful for the Malfoys; Draco’s powers grew quickly, and by the time he was thirteen he could teleport to the middle of Salisbury and set of a gale that ripped of every pair of underwear from every single clothesline in the entire city and blow them half way to Jericho.

 

Shortly after that, tragedy struck. Mr and Mrs Malfoy, dark wizards in their own right, were killed when the manor caught fire. There were whispers that Draco had set the fire in one of his tempers, but this was quickly assuaged by the fact that Draco had been in Egypt with his uncle, looking for interesting cursed objects, at the time.

 

And so it was that at the fated age of thirteen, Draco Malfoy stood alone in the world with a dilapidated manor and more money he knew what to do with.

 

* * *

 

You could have expected Draco to break down after having lost his parents, and while there were many nights when his pillow was very wet when he at last fell asleep he wasn’t a Malfoy in name only. Instead, he had builders in to repair the manor to his specifics (as in, they put the roof back up and patched the worst of the holes in the walls). Then, he set about being the dark wizard his parents had so dearly wanted him to be.

 

For many years Draco lived alone in his old manor, blighting and smiting and blasting and wuthering and doing everything in his power to keep darkness and wickedness alive and thriving in the country. He also made sure to make the Manor as dark and dreadful as possible. This was not easy; Malfoy Manor lay in the sunniest part of Wiltshire, and was cursed with the most horribly pleasant weather imaginable. It took Draco many months to turn it into the sort of place that a dark wizard could be proud of. He called in rain clouds from the sea to let them drip endlessly on the leaky roof. He filled the battlements with screech owls and bats, and the cellars with salamanders. He lined the avenue with horrifyingly burnt and wilted trees and dug a well that oozed sulphur and brimstone in a terrible way. He planted a yew tree maze that was so complicated no one could ever hope to come out alive, and he made the grand fountains spew out blood. But there was one thing he couldn't do: he couldn’t make the house ghost corporeal.

 

The Malfoy Manor ghost was a medieval warrior named Lord Gilderoy Lockhart, who once upon a time had murdered all of his seven wives and now haunted the house, covered in blood and chains, bemoaning his fate and striking his forehead with a splashing sound. The spirit usually manifested in the wine cellar, where he warmed up with a few horrifying wails. he then floated up the stairs and through the hallway whilst moaning in despair, and finally stormed through a great mural of a man having his arms chopped off while being roasted on a giant grate, howling with self-pity and grief. It was enough to make anyone lose their appetite. Draco absolutely adored it. He would have _loved_ to bring the man back to life, if nothing else than for the company, but resurrecting the dead is the darkest and most terrible magic of all and not even Draco could get that right.

 

* * *

 

And so, the years passed. Though Draco hardly ever left the manor, his reputation spread far and wide. People called him Draco the Despicable, Destroyer of Goodness, Loather of Light and Wizard of the South. They said he was friends with Beelzebub himself. But Draco only kept working. He had grown from gangly boy, to awkward teenager, to young man and more beautiful by the day. Now he was tall, pale, with striking grey eyes and elegantly cut blond hair. He had a strong chin and an aristocratic nose, and he was always impeccably dressed. The loss of his parents had knocked all the spoiled, vain parts of personality straight out the water and it was as if he was completely unaware of how stunning he was.

 

Amongst other things, Draco amused himself with setting up a private zoo that he filled with the ugliest, nastiest creatures he could find. Menacing dogs with foam dripping from their hideous fangs, giant lizards that spat poison at you if you got in their visual range, and vultures with plumage that seemed to be constantly molting, to name but several. He turned the grand ballroom into a laboratory in which fiendish things bubbled all days and gave out terrifying smells, and he installed traps and pitfalls all over the mansion.

 

Then one day, he woke up feeling absolutely miserable. He knew he ought to get up and throw someone into his dungeon or order some new horrible creature to his zoo, but he just wasn’t in the mood.

“Remus” he said to the servant who came in with his breakfast, “I’m done. Through. Exhausted. _Bored_.”

Remus Lupin was a werewolf, but much to the disappointment of his lycanthropic relatives he was neither big nor menacing. Apart from a tendency to get rather hairy and slobbery on full moons and a rather severe silver allergy, he rarely made a fuss. He was frighteningly thin and had messy brown hair, with the most peculiar amber eyes who always caught you off guard with the intelligence and gentleness in them. Before Remus had started working for Draco, he had been a sword swallower at a fair and still liked to swallow the occasional sable or rapier. It soothed the nerves.   

Now he looked at his master with eyes full of compassion and said, “are you, sir?” as he handed over the tea cup.

“Yes I am” Draco complained, “I am sick of all of this. I’ve been thinking that maybe I ought to go on vacation. Set up in some nice small town somewhere and write a book.”

The werewolf was shocked. “But what about darkness and evil, sir?” he protested.

“I know!” Draco cried, his elegant eyebrows furrowing, “I know I have a duty, I see that! But for how long, Remus? How long?” he desperately waved his arms around, sending the tea flying. “ _How long?”_

Remus wasn’t the stupid sort of werewolf that just goes around snarling and baring their fangs at people. Now he looked thoughtfully at his master and said,

“Well, I can’t tell you that, sir. Werewolves can’t tell the future. But I know of someone who can. Sybil Trelawney. She was a soothsayer at the fair I worked at, and she knew her stuff.”

 

* * *

 

So the following week, Draco and Remus went into Salisbury to look for the market. They found Trelawney’s caravan almost immediately. It was easy to spot it because everyone who came out looked befuddled.

“She tells the truth” Remus said as he happily breathed in the smell of fried onions and hot motor oil that laid thick over the entire fair ground, “not that usual rot about dark handsome strangers and journeys across the sea.”

Sybil Trelawney was a tall, thin lady with very frizzy hair. Draco had dressed in muggle clothing in order to fit in, but the gaze she levelled on him was very sharp.

“For you, it’ll be a fiver” she said, “sit.”

Draco obeyed. Trelawney took a deep draught from a bottle labelled ‘Firewhiskey’, then stared deeply into her crystal ball. Draco waited with baited breath. Eventually, Miss Trelawney leaned back and lit a pipe.

“All is well” she said, “he’s on his way.”

“Who?” Draco demanded, confused and frustrated.

“The new wizard. The one who’s going to take over after you.”

“What?” Draco didn’t get it.

“Do you need me to spell it out for you?” Trelawney complained. Then she half-closed her eyes and and put on a droning tone. “The Great and Terrible Wizard cometh, he whose power shall be stronger than thine. When he cometh, thou, Draco the Despicable, shall at last be able to lay down the burden of Darkness and Wickedness that thou hast carried for so long.” She opened her eyes. “Got it?” she sneered.

“Oh yes, yes!” Draco cried in delight, “you don’t know when he cometh?”

“No, I don’t.” Miss Trelawney replied crankily. “Next!”

 

* * *

 

After the visit to the fair, Draco was a happy man. Just to pass the time, he made an oil ship spring a leak just outside of Dover, made the entire east part of the London Subway stop working for a week straight, and invented a new spell that made people’s hair fall out. But most of the time he spent by the grand gates, looking for the Wizard.

It was cold business. Wiltshire was having an unusually rainy period, and when Draco one morning discovered that he did not own a single pair of shoes that did not leak he came up with the great idea to create a Wizard Watcher.

For the body, he used the shape of a sea lion except larger and cuddlier with soft, dark fur. The watcher had four feet and one tail, but most importantly it had three heads with keen-sighted and very beautiful eyes on short stalks. And every morning, at sunrise, this friendly monster waddled its way out of the Manor, through the gardens, and down to the Grand Gate where it sat down to Watch for the Wizard. The left head looked to the west, across the moors, the middle head looked north, towards the city, and the right head looked east, towards the great woods.

 

And there the monster sat, watching, day after day after day as the months and years passed. But on the ninehundred and ninety-ninth day when it had sat there waiting and watching for the no-show witch, the Watcher got disillusioned and lost hope.

“He cometh not from the west” said the left head.

“He cometh not from the north either” added the middle head.

“And you can forget the east” the right head said grumpily, “because the Wizard cometh not from there either!”

There was a pause.

“Our tail feels like an icicle” the left head complained, “and our feet feel like they're about to fall of!”

“Our feet _are_ falling off!” The right head whined.

“I think the boss has been had” the middle head finally said.

“You mean there isn’t a wizard?” The left head asked.

This time there was a long pause.

“It won’t be fun to tell him” the right head sighed deeply.

“Someone’s got to” the middle head pointed out.

So the monster turned and waddled back to the Manor, where it found Draco getting dressed for dinner.

 

“Well? Any news?” he demanded the moment he saw the Watcher.

“The Dread Wizard cometh not from the west” said the left head, as it had done every night for nine hundred and ninety nine days.

“He cometh not from the north” said the middle head.

“Nor cometh he from the east” the right head added. Then all three heads steeled themselves and said bravely:

“We think there is no Dread Wizard coming at all.”

“You can’t mean that! It’s not possible!” Draco cried, horrified. He turned to Remus, who had entered to brush the lint from his master’s suit, “What do you think?”

“Trelawney is never wrong, sir, but she is not always completely accura-” Remus didn’t get to finish his sentence as Draco, who was inspecting himself in the mirror, let out a howl that would have frightened a banshee.

“A white hair!” He bawled, “a white hair, in my perfectly golden hair! Oh, darkness and wretched shadows! This is THE END!”

His anguish brought Severus Snape, his uncle, guardian and secretary, storming in like a bat out of hell.

“What is all this nonsense?” he demanded. Severus Snape was a tall, dark and gaunt man that had been born the son to a Dark Witch and a muggle. This had made him think he had something to prove. It was rather silly of him, as loads of Dark Witches have children with muggles these days. But Severus didn’t know any other dark Witches than his mum, so he had spent years and years being a downright tosser and alienating everyone around him. Then he realised that villainy didn’t suit him and started working for Draco instead. Now he frowned in concern at his sort-of nephew.

“Are you alright, Draco?” he asked, concern colouring his voice. “You seem upset.”  
“Upset? I’m FINISHED! Don’t you know what a white hair MEANS? It means aging, it means death, it means the end to Malice and Malcontent at Malfoy Manor! And where is the new wizard, where where _where?”_

The left head of the Witch Watcher sighed deeply. “He cometh not from the west-” it began.

“I know that he cometh not from the west, you dolt! That’s what I’m complaining about. What am I going to do? I can’t wait for ever!”

Severus hummed thoughtfully. “Have you considered marriage?”

Draco spun on him, little lightning bolts shooting from his fingers in his agitation.

“Married? ME, married? Are you out of your MIND?”

“If you married, it’d ensure the succession” Remus, who was a quick thinker, pointed out.

“What in Merlin’s name are you on about?” Draco snarled. He felt completely wretched and consequently upset.

“If you got married and had a son, then she would take over after you.” Severus explained, momentarily despairing at his nephew’s thickness. Lord Lockhart moaned in the paneling. Draco considered it. If he concentrated, he could see the baby. A darling little lad, with big blue eyes and a full set of teeth, happily chewing a marrow bone to mush. Then he shuddered.

“Who could I possibly marry?” He asked, his voice very small.

But they all knew the answer to that question, of course. The only person a Dark Wizard can possibly marry is a Dark Witch.

“It wouldn’t be so bad” Severus said encouragingly.

“Not so bad!” Draco screeched. “A big black crone with warts and boils in unmentionable places from their eternal broom flying! You want me to sit opposite one of _those_ every morning and eat my cornflakes?”

“I think Dark Witches have changed since-” Severus began but Draco was not having it.

“Running through the corridors in her horrible nightgown, shrieking and flapping! Getting egg in her whiskers! Wanting her kitty cat to sleep in the bed, no doubt!”

“She doesn’t have to-”

“Every time I went into the kitchen for a snack they’d be there stirring their cauldron with disgusting ingredients! Ee of newt and turtle toes and all that muck! Not a decent steak in the house, I expect, since she’d gotten here!”

“It doesn’t have to be a witch” Remus said, but no one could reason with Draco in this moment. Severus said nothing, busy giving Draco the stink eye. He rather liked potion making.

“And she’d wash her disgusting yellow teeth in MY SINK!” He howled, growing more and more hysterical, “or worse - she’d NOT watch her disgusting yellow teeth in my sink!”

“She could have her own bathroom” the middle head said practically.

 

But nothing could calm Draco, who kept ranting and yelling for another ten minutes. Then he suddenly went very still, and very pale. “Very well. I see it is my duty.”

“That’s the spirit!” Remus cried encouragingly.

“But how do I choose?” Draco’s voice was only a thin thread. “It has to be a Salisbury Witch, of course, or they’ll take offence. But how do we choose which witch?”

“I might have an idea” Severus said.


	2. Chapter 2

The witches of Salisbury were preparing for the monthly coven meeting and they were very excited. A coven is a gathering of witches and wizards, and it is an excellent place to exchange spells, potion tips and, of course, matchmaking. But this month wasn’t going to be just the usual dancing, drinking and wickedness. A very important announcement was going to be made.

 

“I wonder what it will be” said Pansy Parkinson, “some new wizards, maybe. We could use them.” This was true. There was not a single un-engaged wizard in all of Salisbury at the present, but several young witches who were very interested in being married. Seven of them, in fact. If Draco had been aware of the limitations of his choice of wives he would probably have been even more miserable than he was, but luckily he didn’t know. 

 

During the day, Pansy Parkinson ran a fish shop on the edge of the Nadder, with a lovely view (if you squinted and the weather was nice) of the Salisbury Cathedral. She was a sea witch and didn’t like being far from the water. Pansy’s mother, Mrs Parkinson, had been a mermaid; the proper kind who sat on a rock and brushed her hair and sang. But no sailors had ever been entranced by her. This was in part due to her looking like like the back of a bus and partly because modern ships are so far above the water that no sailors ever saw her. So one day, she’d splashed onto the pier at Southampton  with a few sovereigns from an old sunken ship and convinced a plastic surgeon who was there on holiday to operate on her fish tail so it became a pair of legs. It was from her mother that Pansy had her magical powers. From her father, she had the shop. 

 

Today she closed up early, put a few cods’ heads in a paper bag and set of for her little house. Just as she turned onto her road, she saw a few children who were splashing and giggling in the shallow waters of the only local place you could actually swim in the river. 

“Ha!” said Pansy and pursed her lips. She closed her eyes and said a few lines of poetry. Instantly, a shoal of stinging jellyfish appeared in the water and the children ran shrieking to their mothers. “That’s better” said Pansy. Like all Dark Witches, she abhorred happiness.

When Pansy came home, she went straight to her bedroom to change. Coven meetings are like parties, it is important what you wear. So she put on her best purple dress which was covered in yellow cross-stitch haddocks and placed her best brooch (a sea slug baked in plastic) on the ribbon that held her hair in place. Then she went into the bathroom. 

 

“Come along, dear” she said as she bent over the bath, “time to get ready!” 

What lived in Pansy’s bathtub was of course her familiar. A familiar is the animal or creature that helps a witch with her magic, and it is _ extremely  _ significant. Pansy’s familiar was an octopus; a large animal with pale tentacles, suckers which left rings of blood everywhere they touched and cruel red eyes It was a girl octopus, and its name was Doris. 

 

“Now don’t keep me waiting” Pansy admonished as she tried to pick up her familiar. She had fetched a plastic bucket from the hallway and was no trying to stuff Soris into it. “It is a very important night tonight!” But Doris was in a playful mood. As soon as one tentacle was in, another poked out and it was a very dishevelled Pansy who at last managed to close the lid. She loaded the bucket into an old hand cart and set of towards the coven bus.

 

* * *

 

Hannah Abbott’s familiar wasn’t an octopus; it was a pig. Hannah was a country witch who lived in a run-down cottage just outside of a small village to the east of Salisbury. She had mousy hair and was a rather simple person, who liked gardening and parsnip wine and tended to shovel manure over absolutely everything. And just as people grow to look a lot like their dogs (or the other way around), Hannah had grown to look a lot like her pig. Both of them had round pink cheeks and very large behinds. Both of them moved slowly on rather stumpy legs and grunted as they went, and both had small, sleepy eyes.

 

Hannah worked at the Egg Packing Station, and it was a very boring job since the eggs she packed usually were already bad so here wasn’t much for her to do. Instead, she spent her time giving the sheep husk and making the cows dry on her way home at night. And as for the plant life on the stretch of road from the Egg Packing Station, there was not a one who was not covered in mold or rust or greedy greenflies that sucked at their juices. 

 

But tonight, she walked straight home. Hannah was not a fancy dresser, but she still rinsed of her boots and put on a clean apron with rotting felt tomatoes stitched on the pocket. Then she looked around for something to eat. There wasn’t anything in the kitchen, but on the parlour floor she found a dead jackdaw which had fallen down the chimney.

 

“It’ll do!” She said as she picked it up. Then she left the house, and went down to the shed at the bottom of the garden to fetch her pig  

 

* * *

 

Padma and Parvati Patil were twin witches who worked at the Salisbury Station. They were an unusually horrid pair who hated each other, hated passengers, and hated trains. As soon as Padma went to the loudspeaker to announce that the four-fifteen train to London was coming in at platform one, Parvati rushed to her loudspeaker and cackled into it that the four-fifteen to London had engine problems and would be ninety minutes late, and then it would not come into platform one but platform four if they were lucky. 

So now, when they should have been getting ready for what might very well be the most important coven meeting of their lives, they stood in their underwear in their living room on Nursery Road and argued about which familiar was whose.

“That is so my chicken!” Padma screeched and pulled at the feathers of the unfortunate bird. “That’s your chicken, over there!” 

It wa a ridiculous argument. The Patil twins were identical with long black hair, pointed noses and smoke-stained fingers. They dressed alike and slept in a twin bed and each had a chicken for a familiar which lived in wicker crates beneath the bed. And of course their chickens were very alike. Chickens usually are. Nervous brown birds who’d peck at your fingers as soon as look at you. But this made no difference to the Patil twins who went on bickering for so late they very nearly missed the bus.

 

* * *

 

For many years now the witches of Salisbury had come together at Old Sarum, which was a ruin of an early medieval city about half an hour's bus ride from the city. There were powers there, the truly dark and terrible kind that had made the people of old build a church right on top of where they thought the epicentre had been. They were off by about fifteen feet, but they’d still made the attempt. These days Old Sarum was mostly left to its own devices and the occasional tourist. Well, and the coven of Salisbury on the first Thursday of the month. 

To get there, the witches had rented a bus, The Knight Bus, which was driven by a friendly chap called Stunpike, and left the bus depot at 7 p.m. (No one had flown on broom sticks since 1935 when a witch called Black had nearly been sucked into the engine of a Boeing 707 and almost caused a really messy accident). 

The Patil twins were still bickering when they arrived at the bus depot, but stopped once they saw what was standing at the pavement just outside the bus. It was a small coffee table. 

“It’s her again” said Padma. “Silly old crone.” 

“I’d like to put out my fag on her” said Parvati, who as always had a cigarette in her mouth. They glared in unison at the chubby little table.

 

“It’s sad when they go batty like that” said Hannah. She had loaded her pig into the trailer and now came over to have her own look at the coffee table. She prodded at it with a muddy boot.

The table was in fact a very old witch called Mrs Longbottom, who lived in a dilapidated shack in the poorest part of town. In her youth, mrs Longbottom had been a formidable witch of the old school, making people come out in boils, putting the evil eye on butchers who sold her bad sausages and enchanting babies in their prams so their mothers didn’t recognise them. 

 

But now she was old. Her memory was gone and like many old people she got her fancies. One of these was to turn herself into a coffee table. It was useless for her to be a coffee table; she didn’t drink coffee, and since her grandson had married and moved away there was no one who needed to put anything down on her. But she was a cranky old witch who often remembered the spell that would turn her from a gnarly old crone with horrible clothes and whiskers into a low oak table with sculpted legs and a glass top, and then there was no stopping her. What she did not often remember was how to turn herself back to a human again. 

 

“Oh, for pity’s sake” cried Pansy from inside the bus, “leave the silly old thing where she is!” from her previously mentioned mermaid mother Pansy had inherited legs that very quickly dried up and itched terribly, and she was anxious to get to Old Sarum where the air was damp and cool. 

But just then, something happened. Two sparrow who had been squabbling in the gutter raised their heads and started singing like nightingales. A flock of golden butterflies appeared from out of nowhere, and over the dim bus depot there wafted the scent of primroses with morning dew on them.

“Ugh! It’s her!” cried Parvati Patil, “I’m off.” and she threw her chicken into the trailer and climbed on the bus.

“Me toO!” cried her sister, “I can’t stand her. I don’t understand why they let her come to the coen, I really don’t!”

 

Luna Lovegood came slowly round the corner. She was a very young witch, with thick golden hair in which a small fruit bat hung like a little wrinkled prune. There was usually something in Luna’s hair: a baby bird parked there by her mother while she flew off looking for worms, a squirrel who wanted a safe place to eat its hazel nuts, or a butterfly who thought she was a lily or a rose. Luna’s nose turned up at the end, making it an excellent place for tired butterflies to rest; she had a clear, high forehead and her eyes were as blue as the early morning summer sky. But as she came up to the bus she hesitated and looked worried and unhappy, for she had learnt to only accept cruelty from the other witches.

But then she spotted the coffee table and immediately forgot her own worries. 

“Oh, Mrs Longbottom!” she cried, “have you forgotten your undoing spell again?” 

The table started to rock and Luna wrapped her arms around it.

“Do try to think! I’m sure you can remember. Was it a rhyming spell?” The table rocked faster. “It was? well , I’m sure it will come back in a moment!” She laid her cheek to the glass top, sending healing thoughts into the old witch’s tired mind. “I can feel it coming back-”

There was a whooshing noise, Luna tumbled backwards, and suddenly in front of her there stood an old crone in a horribly mottled green coat and a hideous hat with waxed fruits all over.

 

“Thank you my dear” croaked Mrs Longbottom, “you are a sweet girl even if you are-” but she couldn’t bring herself to say the horrible word, no dark witch can. So instead she hobbled over to the bus and started to heave herself aboard, keeping a firm grip on a large tin with a picture of George VI’s coronation on the lid. There was a rule about how all familiars were to be in the trailer, but Mrs Longbottom never let it out of her sight. Inside the tin, there were hundreds of fat white maggots who turned into flies when you blew on them. One fly is useless for magic, but a cloud of flies - flies in your mouth, in your hair, in your eyes - is a very good familiar indeed.

 

Luna was the last witch to get on the bus. She alone of all the witches had no familiar. You do not need one for white magic. It was another thing that made her feel so very much alone.


	3. Chapter 3

Luna had always been white. Even as a baby, she had used her witch's teeth only to bite of the lid of milk bottles so the blue-tits could get at the cream, and as she got older her whiteness just got worse and worse. Flowers bloomed where she walked, bursts of heavenly music randomly played in the air around her and when she smiled, old men remember Christmases from their childhoods. As as for her hair - from when she was six and it reached her waist, Luna always had something nestling in her yellow hair.

Luna herself longed for the dark; to smite and blast and wreck and ruin and  _destroy_  seemed like the most wonderful thing in the world to her. But though she could heal people and charm flowers from the barren earth and speak the language of the animals, even the smallest evil, like turning a fresh green cucumber into a rotting piece of black pudding, was completely beyond her reach. Not that she didn't try! Every morning before Luna went to work (she was an assistant at a rescue shelter for magical animals) Luna would stand by her window and say "every day, in all ways, I grow blacker and blacker!".

But she wasn't, and the worst part was that she had to endure the other witches' mocking and cruelty. Luna dreaded the coven meetings, when she was shunned and mocked and made to huddle by herself far away from the fire with only the familiars for company. She only kept going in the hope that one day some of the blackness of the other witches was going to rub off on her.

The bus had left Salisbury now. There was one more witch, but she usually got on the bus on the way. It was a very old witch whom the others called Giveafig, because she always whined about everything. In reality, her name was Arabella Figg and she worked part-time in the tourist shop of the Salisbury Cathedral. Miss Figg was a banshee, a special sort of witch that wails and cries and moans about the place telling people that certain doom is about to fall on them. Banshees are not a very healthy lot, and Giveafig was usually so ill the bus had to collect her at her door if she was to come to the coven at all.

"She's not at the gate" complained Pansy, who's mermaid legs were getting very dry from the air-conditioning on the Knight Bus and were itching horribly. So Luna, who always ran errands for the others, got off the bus and walked briskly up the little path leading to Giveafig's house which had it's name  _The Shrieking Shack_  written on the gate.

The door was open, so Luna stepped in and went up the rickety stairs, and into the little bedroom. She took one look at Giveafig and realised that it was impossible for her to come to the coven; the old woman was completely covered in red spots.

"It's measles" Giveafig groaned. "I got spots all over. Mr Wiggums, too." she waved an exhausted hand towards the windowsill, where a fat tabby cat lay sleeping in the last rays of the evening sun. a cat with measles is unusual, but where there is magic anything is possible.

Luna was very upset.

"Can I help-?" she began.

But like most witches, Giveafig hated the word  _help._

"No" she groaned, "just go away and leave me alone. No one cares for me anyway."

So Luna poured her a cup of water, plumped up her pillows and went out, passing Giveafig's dressing table where dolls of the doctor and district nurse lay, both stuck full of pins.

"I'm afraid it's hopeless" she reported when she returned to the bus, "Miss Figg has the measles."

"Stupid old banshee" sneered Padma Patil.

"Delicate lot, the Figgs " said Mrs Longbottom, who had removed the lid of her tin with the coronation on the lid and was stirring her maggots with a bony finger. She was still stirring when the bus arrived at Old Sarum.

* * *

Two hours later, the coven was in full swing. In the old church ruin, a large bonfire roared, lighting up the dilapidated walls in a truly creepy manner. The smell of Hannah Abbott's dead jackdaw filled the air with a horrible stench, and dreary clouds weaved to and fro across the fitful moon. The witches had stopped singing rude songs and were now dancing back to back, or trying to. Hannah's wellingtons didn't exactly help her where she lurched around with Pansy Parkinson.

"You're going the wrong way, you silly cow!" Padma shrieked over her shoulder at her sister. "We're supposed to be going widdershins!"

"This is widdershins you half-witted cow-pat" Parvati screeched back.

Mrs Longbottom didn't dance anymore. She sat as close to the fire as she could get, her mouse-bitten skirts folded back so the warmth of the flames could get at her aching legs. Every so often, a handful of the flies buzzing drunkenly around her head tumbled into the fire and vanished.

And as for Luna, as usual she was left outside in the cold. Like mothers who hand their children over to nannies and nursemaids, the witches had told her to take the familiars a bit away from the fire and keep them calm.

That was a lot easier said than done, because the moment the familiars saw Luna they went to pieces. Hannah Abbott's huge pig threw itself onto the ground like a knocked over tree, shrieking at her to scratch it's stomach. The Patil chickens immediately started to flap their wings and cackle in their attempts to please her with an egg (they hadn't laid anything in years), and Doris the squid reached out a tentacle and laid it gently across Luna's lap.

Meanwhile, over by the fire, the witches got rowdier and rowdier. Mrs Longbottom was drinking deeply from a bottle labeled  _Furniture Polish; not for human consumption._  Pansy Parkinson was kicking her scaly legs higher and higher, showing of her garters of lungfish skin. The Patil Twins were kicking at each other's shins. Widdershins.

And then, something happened.

First, there came from the depths of the earth, an ominous grumble. Then the ground began to shake and heave, a large crack appearing in the earth where the remains of the old altar stood.

"It's an earthquake!" Pansy screamed, and the witches threw themselves to the ground, gibbering from fear.

But her cry was drowned out by the roaring of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning so bright it turned night to day.

"Thunder before the lightning!" Mrs Longbottom wailed, banging her white old head to the ground.

Then, there came the fog. A thick, yellow, choking fog that rolled across the heath, shrouding everything in its cold and smothering darkness.

"It's the end of the world!" Hannah Abbott wailed.

"It's the Creeping Death!" scratched Parvati Patil.

Only Luna was still on her feet, desperately trying to calm and comfort the terrified familiars.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the Great Fog rolled away, there was a last deafening crack of thunder - and the witches gasped, for there on top of the altar stood a figure so magnificent, so spending it took their breath away.

Draco had gone through a lot of trouble with his appearance. He wore a flowing open robe embroidered with constellations of the planets, his trousers were of black silk and he wore not only horns but antlers, which Remus had very cleverly fastened with spell-o-tape behind his ears. With his pale golden hair, his fine features, and rigid posture, he was a vision to behold.

"Greetings, ye foul hags and lovers of darkness!" boomed the Great Wizard.

"Greetings" croaked the witches, crawling slowly to their feet.

Draco could not see Luna behind the thorn bushes, but he saw Hannah Abbott with a burnt jackdaw feather stuck to her face, he saw the Patil twins and he saw old Mrs Longbottom. And when he had seen them, he turned and tried desperately to climb back down from the altar.

"Steady, Sir" said Severus Snape, who stood in the shadows with a bunch of papers.

"Malfoy's never give up, sir" said Remus Lupin encouragingly, patting Draco's knee.

Seeing his retreat cut off, Draco drew a deep shaky breath and continued his rehearsed speech. Meanwhile, the witches had started to get excited, for they were realizing that they were in the presence of the Great Wizard of The South, whom no one had seen for years and whose powers were the greatest in the land since The Great Grindelwald's passing.

"Know ye" Draco went on bravely, "that i am Draco the despicable, hater of darkness and defiler of goodness!"

"Know we, I mean we know" the witches cackled.

"Know ye also that, obedient to the prophecy spoken by the great seer Trelawney, I have waited nine hundred and ninety-nine days for the new wizard to come to Malfoy Manor." he caught a whiff of manure from Hannah Abbott's boots and felt sick to his stomach.

"Chin up, sir" came Remus voice from out of the darkness, and with great effort Draco went on. "Know ye also that the aforementioned Great Wizard has not appeared, and thus I, Draco Lucius Malfoy, have decided to take a wife."

The excitement of the witches grew into a frenzy. They began to nudge and mutter and cackle at each other in a most fiendish way, because it was known that Draco had sworn to never marry. Only Luna stood quiet, her summer sky eyes full of concern for the wizard. She stroked Doris' gelatinous head distractedly.

"Know ye" Draco went on, trying to keep his voice steady, " that I for my bride have chosen to take a Salisbury witch, and that whomever I so chose shall reign-" his voice broke. "I can't do it" he whimpered, swaying on his feet. He had caught a glimpse of Mrs Longbottom's fruit-covered hat in a burst of light from the fire.

"No turning back now" Severus warned in a very quiet voice. He and Remus could see even less of the witches than Draco could, but what they could see had left them deeply unsettled. They'd had no idea things had gotten so bad in Salisbury.

So Draco made a last, desperate effort. "Know ye" he almost sobbed, "that to choose which witch shall be my bride I have arranged a Great Competition to be held at my estate during the frightful week of Halloween. And know ye that which ever witch performs the darkest, most wicked deed shall be my wife!"

Pandemonium broke out. Draco waited for the cackling, hiccuping, and lurching to be done and then said,

"My servant, Mister Lupin, will stay behind and give instructions for the Competition. And remember" he threw out his arms in a dramatic gesture, "that what I am looking for is power, darkness and wickedness! Darkness is all!"

And with a great sigh of relief he teleported away.

* * *

Once the witches had calmed down somewhat from their excitement at seeing the Dread Wizard, Lupin stepped out from the shadows behind the altar and started handing out entry forms for the contest. Mrs Longbottom, who had misplaced her spectacles again, held hers upside down.

"What about the girl over there?" The scent wafting through the darkness made him think of his mother's fresh baked bread and it made him want to curl up with his head in her lap and listen to stories.

"Ignore her!" Pansy sneered, "she's not one of us!"

"She  _is_ a witch" said Hannah, who was the only one who occasionally had something nice to say about Luna.

So Mr Lupin followed the scent over to where Luna was still trying to calm and comfort the familiars.

"Oh, dear" he said as he approached. Because the moment he saw her he realised the problem; the golden curls, the bright eyes, the chickens on her feet, the bat in her hair…

"You ought to lay of the wolfsbane" she replied, scratching Hannah's pig behind the ears, "it makes you looks pasty."

He ignored her comment, choosing instead to ask; "Have you always been… er…?"

"White?" Luna made an unhappy face. "Yes. From birth."

"Nothing to be done, I suppose?"

She shook her head, and Lupin heard little silver bells jingling.

"I've tried everything."

"You won't be competing, then." She shook her head once again, and he heard the bells again.

"You heard him. Darkness is All." Witches cannot cry anymore than wizards, but her eyes grew bright with sorrow. "But tell me… is he truly… as marvelous as he looks?"

Lupin considered the question. He thought of Draco screaming in rage at having misplaced his suspenders. Filling the bath with electric eels and giggling. Ordering a dozen of especially smelly skunks to the zoo and leaving it to Snape to unpack them. But Draco did not have a mean or small-minded bone in his body, so it was with confidence Lupin replied; "He is a gentleman. A true gentleman."

Luna's lips trembled momentarily. "I thought so."

"Well, I'll leave an entry form for you here on this rock-" Lupin said, "and I hope that you wouldn't mind making sure that Miss Figg gets hers, too?" She nodded, and there were once more bells.

"I will vanish in a minute," Lupin added, once he stopped being distracted by the jingle. "And when I do -I have no magic of my own and have to wait for the Dread Wizard to take care of things- there will be some presents on the altar. Make sure you get yours."

"Oh, I will! Thank you!" Luna beamed at him. Then she added: "I… I hope you won't mind, but I couldn't help but notice your eyes. They're such a rare, lovely amber. Usually, people's eye colour is so  _common._ "

Lupin's throat constricted, and he gripped her hand in gratitude.

"My dear, sweet girl! You have no idea how much that means to me. Of course the moonlight-" he was about to tell her all about the horror of being bitten when he was just a child, and of all the hardships that came with eyes like his, but just then Draco realised he hadn't collected Lupin yet and with a  _whoosh_  the servant disappeared.

Instantly, the witches started to screech with excitement and there was a mad rush to get to the ornate hand mirrors glittering on top of the altar. But when the witches looking in the mirrors, they didn't see their own ugly faces. They saw Draco Malfoy's fine features. In addition, the mirror showed Draco in different situations, so that they'd have an idea of what to expect were they to win the competition.

"What are you hanging about here for?" Pansy sneered at Luna, who had snuck over to collect one of the mirrors. "You're not going to compete!"

"That'd be outrageous! Flowers blooming in the snow and angels singing hallelujah!" Hannah snickered.

"Well, she won't win. I will win. I have more experience in my little finger than the lot of you do in your entire bodies." Mrs Longbottom sniffed.

"You!" screeched Padma Patil. "You old hag!" added Parvati.

"I am now" Mrs Longbottom conceded with reluctance, "but I have a Rejuvenation Spell. And when I cast it, you'll see me get so young you have to change my diapers!"

Luna said nothing. It was in complete silence that she helped the other witches gather up their belongings and familiars and load everything into the bus. But when they were all ready to go, Luna smiled and waved at Stan to drive on without her. It was far to walk back to Salisbury in the dark, but she wanted more than anything to be alone. She sat down gingerly on the crumbling pew closes to the altar and looked in the mirror. But just as she was watching Snape help Draco of with the antlers, a voice came at her in the dark.

"I for one think you're a coward." it said, "not to say spineless!"

Luna nearly fell over from shock, before she realised that the voice had not belonged to a human but a bat, and it had come from her own hair.

"Why don't you at least have a go?" the little bat insisted.

"Don't be silly" Luna protested, "you know I can't even make a toad jump out of someone's mouth, and that's the easiest black magic there is."

"People change" replied the bat, "Take my aunt Screwtooth. She was the most useless old bat in existence, couldn't suck the juice from an overripe pear without her husband holding her claw. Then they went on holiday to Transylvania and became chummy with a vampire family and set up camp. You should see her now! So full of blood she's practically bursting with it! And if my aunt Screwtooth can change, then why not you?"

Luna bent over the mirror again. Draco had changed into pyjamas now; green with silver piping. He looked tired and sad, and her heart ached to go to him and comfort him.

"Is it really true, about your aunt Screwtooth?"

The little bat blushed. He'd made the whole thing up because he loved Luna.

But Luna didn't see that. She thought.

If she applied, she'd get to go to the Manor. He'd for sure be one of the judges. And once she was there, maybe she'd find a way to help and soothe him.

She stood up. "All right" she said as she defiantly straightened her shoulders, "I'll have a go."


	4. Chapter 4

Remus Lupin liked to watch TV. Apart from being a werewolf, he was an exceedingly normal man and when all the magic and wickedness at Malfoy Manor became too much for him, he retreated to his rooms to watch shows. And his favourite show, was the Miss World Competition. 

He knew it was stupid of young women to allow themselves to be examined and poked and prodded like cows at a farmer’s market, but that didn’t stop his throat from closing up when the fairest of them all got a crown on her head. 

So when it was decided to hold a competition for the most wicked witch in the South, Remus figured they’d do it a bit like a Miss World competition. It had taken a good bit of time to convince Severus, but once he had explained that he didn’t mean for the witches to parade about in swimsuits the other man was on board. Well, mostly. He had needed a  _ lot  _ of convincing after they’d actually gotten around to seeing the witches, but Remus was very skilled at convincing. Plus, there was this thing he did with his tongue that had Severus willing to take down the moon for him before the proceedings had reached a very satisfying conclusion. 

The plan was to gather all the witches at a hotel first, and make sure that their table manners and taste in clothing ws up to snuff. Also, they needed to make sure that everyone understood the rules of the competition. There must be no shady business, and any witch that was caught attempting to enchant another witch or her familiar, they’d be disqualified  _ immediately. _

Severus, who was still a bit dreamy after Remus having demonstrated his tongue trick several times, had rented the Manor House Hotel in Wiltshire and they’d set the date of arrival for the witches for the end of September. Remus was thrilled to get going with everything.

 

But after the first day at the Hotel, Remus was ready to throw in the towel and be done with it. In fact, he told Severus as they languished over room service in bed that night, if it hadn’t been for Luna he’d have let Draco pick a wife on his own accord. 

 

Luna, who had arrived early in the morning with toothbrush, nightgown and the magical mirror in a basket, had been  _ wonderful. _ It was Luna who  washed Hannah Abbott’s wellingtons when the hotel manager complained about manure on the carpets. It was Luna, who levitated the elevator to the bottom floor so they could get Mrs Longbottom out after the old witch had gotten stuck between two floors. She’d been riding the elevator up and down all day and eventually the situation had occurred. Dear Luna, who had interceded when Doris, wanting to be alone, covered Pansy with ink. She had cleaned up, carried the angry octopus back to her own bathroom, and soothed her. It had also been Luna who convinced Mrs Longbottom that at nice hotels one did not come down to dinner in a Cloud of Flies (and spell-o-taped the lid shut for good measure).  

But no matter what she did, the witches only met her with sneers and scowls and insults.

* * *

 

“It makes my blood boil, the way they treat you.” Severus muttered as he poured himself more tea. No one commented on the fact that there was more whiskey than tea in his cup. Remus did what most people who organise something do; shuffled papers and worried.

“It’s alright” Luna replied from her little footstool, the morning sun turning her hair into a waterfall of gold. She was staring into the magical mirror again. “It’s difficult for them.”

They were gathered in the hotel manager’s office, which the man had kindly allowed Severus and Remus to use for the duration of their stay.

“I’m sure you can do something dark, if you just tried” Severus insisted. He and Remus were determined to make Luna the Mistress of Malfoy Manor, come hell or high water.

Luna put down the mirror and sighed deeply. She knew it was hopeless, but she couldn’t bear disappointing them. So she went over to where the typewriter sat on the manager’s desk and looked at it intently. She thought of the darkest things she would, like uncooked liver and shoelaces and open graves. Then she closed her eyes, waved her arms, and…. Poof!

“Cute” Remus groaned as he stared at the little pot of bright pink, bubbly flowers that stood where the typewriter had been.

“Begonias” Severus groaned and poured more whiskey into his cup. “Bloody begonias.”

“Told you so” Luna replied miserably. She turned the begonias back into a typewriter and sat down again. How the Great Wizard would despise her if he knew!

“Is he still sulking?” Remus asked as he tried to peer over her shoulder.

“Oh no!” Luna protested, “he could never sulk! But he hasn’t been very cheerful lately.”

“That’s one way of putting it” Severus muttered into his whiskey and Remus shot him a warning glance. 

But to be fair, since Draco had seen the witches of the Salisbury Coven he’d been in a terrible mood. He kept waking up screaming from horrible nightmares of fly-stained whiskers chasing him down corridors. His perfect hair had begun to moult, and he kept forcing the poor Wizard Watcher to the gates earlier and earlier in the mornings in a desperate hope that the new wizard would arrive so he could cancel the competition.

“I can’t help but wonder why he’s always sitting in a broom cupboard” Luna said.

“I can tell you that.” Severus said as he contemplated more whiskey, “Sir Lockhart’s favorite spot, that cupboard.”

“Is that the man who looks rather dead, who he talks to sometimes?”

“Very dead. Died in 1583. Killed all his wives.” 

Remus took the cup from him and together the two men looked at the mirror in Luna’s lap. Sure enough, a wavering mist appeared in the mirror and Draco eagerly got to his feet. 

“I don’t like it” Remus shook his head, “he’s been trying to bring Ser Lockhart back to life for years but since the announcement he’s been trying non-stop. Last night I found him asleep on a book about necromancy. Nasty.”

“I wouldn’t worry” Severus said, “I think it’s been two hundred years since anyone managed to revive a ghost.”

But he wasn’t as calm as he pretended. What if Draco actually succeeded? A man who had murdered all his seven wives wasn’t really the sort of man you’d want in a house that was soon to host a wedding.

 

* * *

 

An hour later the witches were gathered in the cocktail lounge at the hotel, waiting for Remus to tell them the rules. They had gone to a lot of effort to look nice. Pansy Parkinson hadm plaited her hair with a string of egg-cases, Mrs Longbottom had on a brand new plaster on her chin, and Hannah Abbott had left her wellies in her room and appeared in bed socks.

“Is everyone here?” Remus asked, briefly looking at Luna who sat by herself on a footstool.

“No” said Padma Patil, “silly old Giveafig isn’t here.”

Severus sighed deeply. Miss Figg had sent in her application slip, but apart from that no one had actually seen her. 

“No point in her to compete” said Pansy Parkinson, “a silly old banshee like that.”

“And that cat of hers” complained Hannah Abbott, “gives me the hives!”

It was true that Mr Wiggums was particularly depressing cat, the sort that always thinks other cats lead better lives and better food and  _ doing _ more.

“Let’s begin without her” said REmus exasperatedly, but just then one of the hotel staff showed up to whisper in his ear.

“Show her in” he ordered, then turned to the other witches with a brightening countenance. “We’re expecting another lady.” 

But the new witch wasn’t the sort you show into a room. No, she came striding in like a queen, and the other witches shuddered as they saw her and Luna drew a deep breath. Because the new witch definitely wasn’t Giveafig. Something more different to the old, worn witch could not be invented by the most creative minds. The new witch was tall and stunningly beautiful, with tasteful ringlets of silvery hair and a long cape of puppy skin. Her fingers and wrists sparkled with jewels, and around her neck she wore a long necklace made from human teeth. But the most shocking part about the new witch was her familiar. Dragging behind her on a rhinestone covered leash came a hulking grey animal, of a sort that made Mrs Longbottom, who had never scraped together enough money for a trip to the zoo, to hiss,

“What’s that?”

“It’s an aardvark, I think” Luna whispered back.

“Good evening” said the new witch, “I am lady Astoria Greengrass. I have come to participate in the competition.”

“I’m afraid there’s been some mistake” Remus said gently, “the competition is only open to Salisbury witches.”

“I am a Salisbury witch.” said Lady Astoria.

“How can that be?” Severus protested, looking particularly put out. 

“I’ve bought Mrs Figg’s house.” said Lady Astoria nonchalantly. “Too small for me, of course, but it has its charm. Mrs Figg found that she wanted to take up travelling.”

“Not a chance” groused Mrs Longbottom, “you couldn’t get Giveafig to the grocers. Travelling gave her hayfever.”

Lady Astoria fixed Mrs Longbottom with a cold look. “Well, she is travelling now. Somewhere close to Turkey, I think.”

She opened her handbag and started to powder her nose, and when Luna saw the vain look she gave herself in the mirror she understood what sort of witch she was. She was an enchantress, the most evil of all witches. Enchantresses are beautiful but it is an evil beauty, that they use to seduce men and discover the secret of their power. And once they have what they want, they destroy them. 

“Very well” Severus muttered unhappily as he wrote her name on the list of participants, but he didn’t like it one bit. Severus knew nothing about enchantresses, but something about Lady Astoria made his blood run cold. 

  
  


Lady Astoria Greengrass wasn’t a witch of Salisbury. She lived in Edinburgh, the main city of magic in Great Britain, where she had a beauty parlor. It was a terrible place, where stupid women paid inordinate sums to be poked and prodded and massaged and slathered in various tinctures and creams. And Lady Astoria simply put some of her magic into the tinctures and creams used, so that immediately after the treatment the women looked stunning. But it was the sort of magic that wears out quickly, and then the women were left even uglier than before. This made them run back to the beauty parlor and pay even more money and the whole thing started all over again. 

Lady Astoria had had four husbands, and no one was completely sure what had happened to them, but they had all disappeared shortly after they’d willed her all their money. She said they had died, but there was rumours. Her first husband had vanished when out sailing. The second and third had been in terrible car accidents, but the fourth… no one was sure what had happened to him. But it was strange how a dog with limpid blue eyes and a wonky leg started prowling the streets of Edinburgh shortly after she’d reported him missing. And every time she lost a husband, the girls at the beauty parlor noticed how Lady Astoria’s necklace of human teeth had grown longer.

And now she was after Draco Malfoy, wizard of the South.

As soon as she heard of the competition, she’d thrown herself to Salisbury via the floo network and gone to see Giveafig to “persuade” her to sell her house to her. Giveafig hadn’t wanted to, she’d moaned and wailed and really proven herself a banshee, but once Lady Astoria had talked about only a few things she might do to her and to Mr Wiggums if she didn’t go, Giveafig had been more than happy to sell her house and buy a round-the-world-trip. Ecstatic, even. 

 

Remus had started to explain the rules of the competition. The witches were to cover themselves in black capes and masks, so that they’d be indistinguishable and ensure that the depth of their magic was the only thing that counted. Any witch that was caught performing any sort of magic on another witch or her familiar would immediately be disqualified. They were to draw numbers out of a hat and perform their magic in the order they drew. They were to hand in lists of items they needed for their art in good time…

Lady Astoria barely paid any attention. Once she’d seen the other witches, she’d known she would win. Had to win. The little golden-haired one was rather fetching, and had a decent amount of raw power, but everyone could see what was wrong with  _ her. _ Oh yes, she’d be Mrs Malfoy alright. And then…!

Hardly waiting for Remus to finish, she stood and carelessly threw the leash on the footstool.

“Make sure my aardvark is fed and watered” she ordered nonchalantly, “I'm going to get ready for dinner.”

The moment she was gone, the other witches started muttering and complaining amongst themselves.

“The cocky, self-absorbed cow, who does she think she is?” exclaimed Padma Patil. “I hope she breaks her neck.”

And for once, her sister completely agreed with her.

 

* * *

 

That night, Remus was pensive as he got ready for bed in the double room he shared with Severus while they were at the hotel.

“What’s wrong?” Severus asked halfway through getting into his pajamas. 

“I’m not sure. Something about that… that Lady Astoria.” Remus shuddered at the mere mention of her name.

“Something about that woman…” Severus agreed, making a face.

“Well, when Luna wins…” Remus said, pouring them both a cup of tea.

“You think she’ll win.” 

“She’d better, or I’m resigning.”

Severus crawled into bed, ignoring the tea. He pulled Remus down to him, cuddling him close.

“I’ll go with you” he promised, lips warm and chafed against Remus’ collarbone.

 

* * *

 

The evening was late, but Luna couldn’t sleep. Dinner had been excellent, but even before one of Mrs Longbottom’s plasters had fallen into her mushroom soup she hadn’t been particularly hungry. Then there had been the business of Hannah Abbott, who had a double bed and wanted to share it with her pig. And once that had been sorted, and an exhausted Luna came back to her room, she found Doris in her bathtub waiting to be tucked in.

But it was none of those things that bothered Luna as she tossed and turned.

No, it was the glimpse of Lady Astoria she’d gotten as she’d gone up to bed. The other woman had stood in a gold negligee before a large mirror in her room, admiring her beautiful body and curls of silver hair, much neater and lovelier than Luna’s could ever dream of being. 

“You spoke of darkness and power, oh great wizard of the south” Luna had heard the other witch say, “and darkness and power is what you’re getting!” 

And it was with the enchantress’ wicked laughter ringing in her ears, that Luna finally fell asleep.


End file.
